manosphere

MGTOW is just one of many men’s rights groups comprising what is known as the Manosphere. MGTOW stands for “Men Going Their Own Way”. The Manosphere is comprised of several groups that share one thing in common. They all believe the rights of men in America and other western countries have been infringed upon for at least several decades and others for more than a century. Also, the vast majority of Manosphere groups believe that feminism is a problematic ideology that is eating away at the core of society and destroying Western civilization.

Where these groups begin to separate from one another is on two main issues.

The first issue which separates manosphere groups is how far back was feminism wrong? Was it from its very origins in the mid-19th century when women’s groups fought for more rights for in divorce and property rights for women? Was it when women were granted the right to vote in 1920? Or was it just from the advent of second wave feminism in the 1960s where feminism dropped the equivalent of a societal nuclear bomb on traditional gender roles and sexual morality and it became a misandrist movement that openly declared war on men?

The second issue which separates manosphere groups is how men should react to the damage feminism has caused to men’s rights, sexual norms, traditional gender roles, marriage and the family. And opinions on what the solutions should be are very much impacted by the group’s view on the origins of the problem.

For instance, if a group does not view equal rights for women, including the ability of women to vote and to be economically independent of men as a foundational part of the problem they will have very different solutions to the assault on men’s rights than other groups. Another way of putting this is that some manosphere groups are only fighting for equal rights for men with women, not less rights for women.

MRAs – Men’s Rights Activists

Many MRA groups in the manosphere believe they just need to just get the societal pendulum to the center. These groups are actually big supporters of first and even second wave feminism and all the new rights these movements granted women. They believe society was unjustly biased to support male privilege and patriarchy over women before feminism came along to correct this injustice. In their view, feminism just went too far and they want to re-balance the rights between men and women and have the courts deal equally with both men and women.

Jesse Powell’s Secular Patriarchy or Traditional Family Activism

Other manosphere groups believe that feminism was flawed from its very inception and that American and Western society made a grave error in granting women economic, social and political independence from men. In their view, tearing down the system of patriarchy which was the norm throughout human history was a colossal mistake.

Even among the manosphere groups that believe feminism was flawed since its very inception in the mid-19th century, there is much diversity of opinion. Some of these groups come from a secular perspective and others come from a religious perspective.

For instance, there are atheists like Jesse Powell who are believe in and teach “secular patriarchy” and consider themselves “TFAs” or Traditional Family Activists. Jesse Powell argues that evolution shows that men are meant to lead, provide for and protect women and that the feminist revolution of the mid-19th century went against this and was doomed to failure because of the unique evolutionary design of men and women.

Mr. Powell not only decries the damage caused by feminism to Western world, but he also offers what he believes is a solution to the problem:

“What society needs instead is for men to assert themselves as men and return to their roles as the guardians, protectors, and foundation of support for women so that women will be once again freed from the concerns and burdens of the man and instead be enabled to focus on giving to others of their femininity and their unique and particular strengths as women. The feminine contribution to the family and to society must be resurrected, must be revitalized, must be held up as a fundamental priority and concern of men once again.

Under coverture women’s role as women was upheld in both culture and law. The beginning of the feminist revolution can be dated back to the initial reforms that worked to undo the principles of coverture; namely the Custody of Infants Act of 1839 and the Married Women’s Property Act of 1870. TFAs wish to repeal the feminist revolution in its entirety and return to a period of stable and healthy relations between the sexes such as existed in the era of coverture.”

So, in his view the answer to fighting the damage feminism has caused to the family unit and Western civilization is to go back to the very beginnings of feminism in the mid-19th century and remove it at is very roots. That means removing women’s right to vote, property rights and child custody rights in divorce. This would force women’s complete dependence on men as had it been for this history of mankind throughout the world.

Rollo Tomassi’s “The Red Pill” or TRP

Other secularists like Rollo Tomassi at RationalMale.com take a different approach. He does not oppose women’s right to vote, property rights for women or even their right to abortion, but he does think that the ideology of feminism is at odds with human evolution and he does not buy into the false blank slate theory that all of our behavior comes from our environment. He rejects the crazy idea that you can educate away basic male and female behavioral traits.

Rollo Tomassi has made a career of his own take on “The Red Pill” which uses the 1999 movie “Matrix” to illustrate how men need to be awakened to what is actually happening around them. In the Matrix movie the mentor character Morpheus offers Neo, the main Protagonist a choice between a red pill and a blue pill. If he takes the red pill, he will be awakened to the false reality he has been living in and shown what the world actually looks like. If he takes the blue pill, he can go back to the fantasy world he has been living in his whole life. But if he does stay in that world, he will continue to be what he has been since his birth, a slave to the Matrix system. He can only be free by taking the red pill and waking up to the harsh real world around him. It will be a harder world, and he will have to fight against the system he used to serve as a slave, but he would be free.

I actually love the Matrix Trilogy and own them all on Blu Ray. I watch them a couple times a year with my sons. I think there are many life lessons that can be learned from them and I actually think the red pill/blue pill is an excellent analogy to how we are brought up in our culture to view our world. I would even use the red pill/blue pill analogy to teach people that there is a spiritual world that is beyond this physical world that we can see and touch.

But unlike Jesse Powell, Rollo Tomassi does not see the answer to the problem of “feminine primacy” in Western culture as a need to completely rollback all gains of feminism since the mid-19th century. Mr. Tomassi is not really looking at long term political solutions to the problem of feminism, but rather he is more interested in helping men to “game” the current feminine dominated culture to fulfill their “masculine imperative”. The masculine imperative in his view is for a man to have sex with as many women as possible. In essence, men are programmed to be polygamous, or most specifically polygynous. Women on the other hand are hypergamous by nature, meaning they seek the best man with which to mate based on his genetics and his ability to provide for and protect them. This is why women are most naturally attracted to muscular, good looking men who have a lot of money.

One of the most important concepts Mr. Tomassi teaches men in their efforts to “game women” is the “Cardinal Rule of Relationships: In any relationship, the person with the most power is the one who needs the other the least”. By this he teaches men that the more they act like they need a woman, especially for sex, the more power she takes in the relationship and ultimately the less attractive he becomes to her.

And no introduction to the Red Pill ideology would be complete without the mention of alpha men, beta men and the concept of “Frame”. In his book “The Rational Male — Positive Masculinity” Tomassi writes:

“The sexual alphaness of a male towards a female is exhibited by her wanting to please him, and the sexual betaness of a male is exhibited by him needing to please her.”

And on the subject of “Frame” Tomassi wrote the following in his article on RationalMale.com entitled “Hypergamy Knows Best”:

“One of the most basic Red Pill principles I’ve stressed since I began writing is the importance of Frame. The dynamic of Frame stretches into many aspects of a man’s life, but in a strictly intergender sense this applies to men establishing a positive dominance in their relationships with women. In a dating context of non-exclusivity (plate spinning) this means, as a man, you have a solid reality into which that woman wants to be included in. Holding Frame is not about force, or coercion, it’s about attraction and desire and a genuine want on the part of a woman to be considered for inclusion into that man’s reality.

Being allowed into a man’s dominant, confident Frame should be a compliment to that woman’s self-perception. It should be a prize she seeks.”

So here is a summary of what Tomassi is saying in these two statements. Men have a choice. They can be the beta male our post-feminist culture wants them to be. That means as a man you center your life on pleasing the women around you. If you are a beta male, your entire strategy in dating and eventually marriage is to make your wife happy each and every day. You will sacrifice your career, your sexual needs and anything else that is required in order to make her happy.

Alpha males are the polar opposite. The best summary of an Alpha male is man who absolutely and unequivocally does not care about what others think of him. He literally does what he wants to whether it is popular or not.

As an example, a beta male would ask his wife or girlfriend permission to go out with his friends on a given evening. The alpha male would tell his wife he was going out and not give her the option of a veto. Tomassi and other Red Pill philosophers have pointed to many studies which show women going after the “bad boy”, i.e. the guy who could care less about what anyone thinks of what he does. For instance, it is extremely common for a woman to be married to Mr. Nice Guy and then have an affair with Mr. Bad Boy who lives next store. The Mr. Nice Guy could work the 9 to 5 job and provide well for his wife and children. The Mr. Nice Guy could come home after work and help with the kids and even cook dinner. Mr. Nice Guy even takes his wife on regular weekly dates and even takes her on romantic trips a couple times a year. But instead his wife finds herself attracted to Mr. Bad Guy next store who is covered in tattoos, rides a Harley, would never want kids and has an endless string of bimbos coming in and out of his house.

This is because two of the driving forces that evoke what Tomassi calls “genuine” verses “negotiated” sexual desire in women are men that give off the allure of danger or excitement. Mr. Nice Guy is both safe and unexciting therefore his wife will most likely have no genuine desire to have sex with him and the most he can ever hope for is “transactional” or “negotiated” sex where he does things for her and then she gives him sex as a reward.

Another driver of genuine sexual desire in women, according to Tomassi, is fear or dread. Its not fear in the sense that she is afraid the man will hurt her if she does not have sex with him. It is not even fear that he might take away things like money or other things he supplies her with. This type of fear or dread as he refers to it is when a woman sees other women are interested in her man. It is really a jealous type of fear where she worries if she does not sexually please him, he will find what he wants elsewhere with these other women that want him.

And these are just some of the many techniques that Mr. Tomassi teaches men in order to stoke “genuine desire” for sex from women toward them. While he does talk about other masculine issues besides sex, his teachings could basically boil down to “How men can get laid both before and after marriage in a post-feminist world.” With teachings like these, it is not surprising that Mr. Tomassi has one of the largest followings in the Manosphere.

One of my many projects I have had in the works is to do an in-depth comparison of the doctrines of Biblical gender roles verses Red Pill ideology. I will say up front as a preview that Red Pill ideology is not all wrong from a Christian perspective. In fact, many observations of Red Pill ideology are backed up by the Bible.

But one of the big differences between Red Pill ideology and Biblical gender roles is that Red Pill just tells you what the differences are between men and women, it does not do a lot of explaining as to why those differences are there.

The only “why” you get from Red Pill for the differences between men and women is based on the evolutionary need to reproduce for the continuation of the species. Mr. Tomassi’s Red Pill ideology teaches that men have polygamous natures which causes them seek to sow their seed with as many women as possible. On the other hand, Tomassi teaches that women have hypergamous natures which causes them to be more selective and thus they seek out the most genetically superior males who can provide for and protect them and their children thus giving their offspring the best chance for survival.

The Bible actually shows that God made men with polygamous natures and it regulates polygamy and even blesses polygamy. So, in this area of man’s sexual nature the Bible would be in complete agreement with Red Pill ideology. The Bible would also agree with the fact that women have hypergamous natures but under Biblical laws women were not allowed to fully act on those hypergamous natures. While it is true that women often married for economic or political means, the fact is historically women had little to no choice in whom they married. Their fathers or other male relatives like uncles or brothers would decide who women married. Only widowed or divorced women had a choice in whom they married.

Also, before the sexual revolution which coincided with the second wave feminism of the 1960s, sex outside of marriage was the rarity and not the norm as it is today. Prior to the sexual revolution, a woman’s virginity was her most prized possession held and protected for marriage. So, the whole Red Pill ideology of cracking “the code of how to get laid” was meaningless for having sex with the vast majority of women. Prior to the advent of dating in the early 20th century and then the sexual revolution of the 1960s, the way a man got laid was to get married. And the way a man got married was to get a job, show he could provide and then earn the permission of the father, uncle or brother of the girl he wanted to marry. In many older cultures a man did not just earn the father’s permission with his character or by showing he could provide, but he also earned that permission by paying for the woman.

In other words, since the creation of mankind right up until the advent of mid-19th century feminist movements, women were considered the property of men. There were two primary ways men acquired women. They would take women as part of the spoils of war from the tribes or nations they conquered or among their own tribe or nation they would purchase women from their fathers or other male relatives.

So, when we look at the history of male/female relationship dynamics, a lot of what Red Pill ideology teaches only applies if a man fully accepts and just wants to “game” our post-feminist and post-sexual revolution culture to fulfill his own personnel desires for pleasure.

However, if you are trying to follow the Biblical model of gender roles some parts of Red Pill ideology will work within a Biblical framework but other parts of it will have to be discarded.

Now that we have talked about MRAs, Secular Patriarchists and Red Pill teachings from the manosphere we will now dive into MGTOWs.

What MGTOWs Believe

Here is the definition of MGTOW from mgtow.com’s “About” page:

“M.G.T.O.W – Men Going Their Own Way is a statement of self-ownership, where the modern man preserves and protects his own sovereignty above all else. It is the manifestation of one word: “No”. Ejecting silly preconceptions and cultural definitions of what a “man” is. Looking to no one else for social cues. Refusing to bow, serve and kneel for the opportunity to be treated like a disposable utility. And, living according to his own best interests in a world which would rather he didn’t.”

On mgtow.com’s “Manosphere” page they explain what happiness looks like to a man:

“Happiness is a man who protects and cares for his family, goes forth and conquers, gives of himself for a greater cause, and ensures his legacy – because that’s what he was made to do. He doesn’t fear resistance, turbulence, or commitment, because his masculine frame turns resistance into rise, finds sustenance in turbulent waters, and relies on the steadfast roots of commitment to provide stability for himself and safety for those he vowed to protect.

But today’s men are encouraged to meet resistance head on while being shamed for expecting lift. They’re told to “man up” and tough it out through turbulent waters while being called misogynists for expecting sustenance. They’re shamed into putting down roots in infertile hypergamous soil that offers no support, then are financially ruined and separated from their children when they cannot weather the storm…

The women they encounter demand attention, loyalty, resources and undue privilege, while offering very little in return. The natural hypergamous nature that once served them well in their quest to secure the best possible mate is now a sustained lifestyle bringing an endless pursuit of bigger and better. The average young woman today is less concerned about the number of quality men who would commit to her than she is about the number of men who retweet a photo of her breasts.

Young men today attend churches with pastors who demand they “man up” and support the church and its female parishioners, but that same church does nothing to cultivate an environment that encourages feminine strength. Sunday after Sunday they listen as the same Bible used to preemptively absolve women of all past, current and future transgressions is used to condemn men…

Men haven’t lost their need to find happiness by providing, protecting, sacrificing and conquering; we’ve simply discovered that providing for the modern feminist, working like a dog to protect a family that can be taken away at a moment’s notice, or risking our lives to conquer resources for some ungrateful women who claims she can do it on her own is an empty way to live. We haven’t changed the mission; we’ve changed the method. We now provide for ourselves and our immediate families, protect our interests, make selective sacrifices when the situation warrants, and conquer mountains of poon.”

Sex is a worthless commodity that grows on trees. Any man who has enjoyed his fair share would know that. It’s available to any man, anywhere, for less effort, money and time than anyone would have you believe. If it’s that important to a man, he can order it like pizza.Right now. Even if the modern man has only 3 lovers in his entire life, he is enjoying more trim than his own grandfather – who was socially expected to marry her first. The value of western vagina has plummeted to $0.

A significant number of MGTOW are fathers. Guess how that happened.”

And finally on the subject of marriage mgtow.com gives this answer in their “Frequently Asked Questions” section:

“Can you be married and a MGHOW?

There has been some deliberation on this, but the short answer is “no”.

While it’s certainly possible that a man may have married 20 years ago, and recently became self-aware of the very precarious legal position he finds himself in today . . . this would be the only real way he could consider adopting a MGTOW lifestyle if he were contemplating divorce.

Cohabitation and the signing of a marriage contract eliminates any possibility that he has a true 100% agency over the outcome of his marriage and future. With 72%+ of divorces solely initiated by women (the number is much higher because she can still passively initiate while making it look like his idea) his kids, house, cars, freedom and ultimate destiny no longer belong to him exclusively. No matter how much he wants his marriage to work, he can’t legally control the outcome and can be totally devastated by the divorce. Divorce is a huge, billion-dollar industry deliberately designed to transfer his wealth and freedom to her, leaving him with little or no recourse – even if he were totally faithful and she had 50 affairs since the wedding.

Save a male and stop a wedding™ is an unregistered trademark of MGTOW.com”

Now that we have shown what MGTOWs believe straight from the horse’s mouth we will take a look at some things that MGTOWs teach that are in fact true.

What is Right About MGTOW?

From a Christian and Biblical perspective most of the groups in the Manosphere have some elements of truth in their philosophies. MRAs are correct in stating that courts and our legal system are biased in helping women and sticking it to men especially as it relates to divorce and child custody issues. Red Pill teachers like Rollo Tomassi are right that sex is a major driving force in any man’s life if he is being honest with himself. Tomassi is also right about men being polygamous by nature and women being hypergamous by nature. And MGTOWs are right about a few things as well.

MGTOWs Are Right About Happiness Drivers for Men

Mgtow.com stated “Happiness is a man who protects and cares for his family, goes forth and conquers, gives of himself for a greater cause, and ensures his legacy – because that’s what he was made to do.” That is absolutely a true and Biblical statement. Men are absolutely driven to create a legacy for themselves both in the children that will carry on their name and in the mark they leave on the world outside their home whether it is in their conquest of the worlds of business, politics, the arts, philosophy, science, medicine, sports or a host of other areas.

A simpler way to say this is that men have a built-in desire to be the hero both in their individual homes and to a larger audience outside their homes.

In Ecclesiastes 7:1 the Bible says “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth”. We read in Proverbs 13:22 that “A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children: and the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the just”.

In Proverbs 3:13 the Bible says “Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding”. And in Psalm 127:3-5 the Scriptures state:

“3 Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. 4 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. 5 Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.”

So, leaving behind a good and honorable name, an inheritance for one’s children and their grandchildren, learning and finding wisdom and understanding and having children were all meant by God to be sources of happiness for men.

MGTOW is absolutely right that one of the driving forces in a man’s life and one that is meant to bring him happiness is his legacy both in how he provided for and protected his family and how he left his mark on the world. As Bible believing Christians, we believe this is part of God’s design in man.

MGTOW is Absolutely Right About the Riskiness of Marriage for Men

Before the rise of feminism, a man could securely enter into marriage with a woman knowing she would be faithful to him for life. He could confidently set out to build his legacy with his wife and children at his side.

MGTOW is absolutely right that the modern feminist mindset has decimated the institution of marriage for men. They are right that around 70 percent of divorces are filed by women. They also right that the courts are biased toward women and that men can literally loose half or more of everything they have and be left with seeing their children much less than the mother does.

MGTOW is also right from a secularist perspective that in our post-feminist world a man does not need to marry to have sex. A man can get all the sex he wants whether through paying for it or using Red Pill gaming and pickup artist techniques. And it is absolutely true that many women freely give out sex to lure men into marriage and then once marriage comes, they stop having sex or only use it as a reward technique to keep their husbands in subservience to them.

MGTOW is Absolutely Right That Men Ought Not to Surrender Their Autonomy to Women

MGTOW is also right that for many men who do stay married, the only way they keep their wives from divorcing them is to surrender their autonomy to their wives. In other words, they must become full on beta husbands in order to avoid divorce.

The Bible tells us it is a shame when women or children rule over men:

“As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.” – Isaiah 3:12

In the New Testament we read a direct command from God that women are not to take authority over men:

“But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” – 1 Timothy 2:12

Now that we have discussed what is right about MGTOW we must now warn Christian men as to what is wrong about MGTOW.

What is Wrong About MGTOW?

From a Christian perspective there are several core teachings of MGTOW that directly contradict the teachings of the Word of God.

MGTOW Misses Sex as a Primary Driver for Men

While MGTOW and Red Pill share much in common in their ideology one of the large differences between them is on the issue of sex. MGTOW sees a man’s legacy as his primary driver of happiness in life where Red Pill sees a man’s sexual fulfillment as his primary driver in life. The truth is that that BOTH the building of a legacy through providing for and protecting one’s family and a man’s life’s work as well as his sexual fulfillment were meant by God to be primary driving factors of a man’s happiness in life.

The Scriptures tell us the following in Proverbs 5:15-18:

“15 Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well.

16 Let thy fountains be dispersed abroad, and rivers of waters in the streets. 17 Let them be only thine own, and not strangers’ with thee.

18 Let thy fountain be blessed: and rejoice with the wife of thy youth. 19 Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love.”

Contrary to the teachings of MGTOW and Red Pill, God did not intend for men to find happiness in only their legacy or in meaningless sex with strange women. He did not mean for any man to share a woman with other men. He meant for a woman to belong to one man for her entire life and that she would never be sexually touched by another man as long as her husband lived. In other words, God meant for men to find sexual fulfillment in marriage with their wife, not outside of marriage with strange women.

God made man’s sexual drive so strong that he compares it to water and calls it a need in a man’s life. And the well to meet that need was meant to be his wife. Many MGTOWs deny sex is even a real need for a man and they advocate “Going Monk”. But other MGTOWs and the Red Pill folks while acknowledging sex as a true need in men teach men that they can fulfill this need with whorish women that give their bodies to many men.

MGTOW and Red Pill Miss the Most Important Driver for Men

Why did God plant both a strong desire for men to play the hero and build legacies both inside and outside their homes? Why did God plant such a strong sexual desire in men for the beauty and sexual pleasure of women? And really why did God create women with the power to give men such pleasure both visually and physically?

This is where much of the Manosphere won’t be able to give you an answer. But the Bible has a clear answer for this and it is found in the Apostle Paul’s divine commentary on the Genesis account in his first epistle to the Corinthian church:

“7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man. 8 For the man is not of the woman: but the woman of the man. 9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” – I Corinthians 11:7-9

Man was created by God to bring him glory by imaging him. That is his primary directive and his purpose in life.

By “image” we mean “to display”. Man was designed by God to display his nature and his attributes. God is strong, so he made man strong. God is aggressive, jealous and competitive. So, he made man aggressive, jealous and competitive. God is a worker, a builder and a conqueror. So, he made man to be a worker, a builder and a conqueror. God wants to lead, provide for and protect his people. So, he created man to desire to be a leader, provider and protector for his wife and children. God wants to leave his mark on this world and so to he designed man to want to leave his mark on it as well.

Lastly contrary to what many Christians believe about God, the Bible tells us God is a lover of pleasure and beauty. In Revelation 4:11 we read that all of creation was created for God’s pleasure:

“Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

Psalm 45:10-11 has been widely recognized by many Christian scholars as prophecy of Christ and his Church:

“10 Hearken, O daughter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house; 11 So shall the king greatly desire thy beauty: for he is thy Lord; and worship thou him.”

These passages I have just mentioned prove that God does seek out and enjoy pleasure and beauty and this is why men are hardwired by God to do just the same in regard to the beauty and pleasure that women can offer them.

So, if man was created by God to display or literally live out his attributes than why did God create woman? The passage I gave above from I Corinthians 11:9 gives us the answer to this question. God created woman for man. Period.

That means every part of a woman’s being, every part of her psychological and physiological makeup was created for man’s benefit and more specifically to help him live out the attributes of God. God created man strong, so man needed someone weaker to protect. That is why God made woman “the weaker vessel” as I Peter 3:7 tells us. Man needed someone to bear his legacies in the form of his children, care for them and care for the domestic needs of his home. That is why the Apostle Paul gives women this command in 1 Timothy 5:14:

“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.”

As Christian men we must accept that our drive to have a legacy and to have sex for that matter were given to us cause us to image God with our lives.

MGTOW Denies Man’s Need for Female Companionship

MGTOWs encourage men to divorce themselves from the concept of female companionship. Sure, they will say if you need to have sex, go game a woman or find a prostitute. But we are not talking about sex here. We are talking about companionship. God said in Genesis 2:18:

“And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.”

In Malachi 2:14 the Scriptures state:

“Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.”

So, as we can see from the Bible, God did not just create woman for man’s for sexual pleasure, to be the mother of his children and the caretaker of his home. He also created her to be his companion throughout his life. He said it is not good for man to be alone. And he did not create another man to solve that problem. He created a woman.

God created woman for man to be his greatest cheerleader. He created her to cheer him in his victories and comfort him in his defeats. That is why the Scriptures tell us in Proverbs 12:4 that “A virtuous woman is a crown to her husband: but she that maketh ashamed is as rottenness in his bones”. This is also why I Corinthians 11:7 states that woman is “the glory of man”.

MGTOW Promotes a Spirit of Fear in Men

As I said previously, I do not deny the we in western civilization are living in a feminine centric world. While women point to men still occupying the majority of top CEO positions, they neglect to point out that that the majority of middle management positions in companies are now held by women (except in technology companies). They also neglect the fact that women dominate colleges and universities. In most churches, even those led my men, women dominate and influence the teachings and direction of the church.

I do not deny that our courts are highly slanted toward women especially in divorce and child custody and marital property division decisions. The state literally incentives women to divorce their husbands.

Yes, this makes marriage a far riskier proposition for men than it has ever been in the history of mankind. And it is for these reasons that a core teaching and requirement to consider one’s self an MGTOW is to swear off marriage completely. This sets MGTOW apart from the ideologies of Red Pill and Secular Patriarchy and most importantly the Biblical principles regarding gender roles and marriage.

But let’s put the marriage risk into perspective. Statistics in recent years show marriages failing at a little less than 50 percent now. But let’s just round it up to 50 percent. Then we know that of that 50 percent of marriages ending, 70 percent of those marriages were ended by the woman. That means if you are a man you have a 35 percent chance that if you marry a woman, she will divorce you.

Now some might argue that the chance of divorce would go up higher if you did not become the beta man that many wives want their husbands to be. But we can offset that risk increase by men being choosier with the women they marry.

The are three ways this can be offset the risk that a man’s future wife will demand that he become a beta husband in order to save the marriage from the threat of divorce.

Search out and marry a Red Pill American or western woman.

Search out and marry a woman raised in another country that still has traditional gender roles and has not been poisoned by feminism.

Search out an American woman who was raised in a conservative Christian home and that fully embraced male headship and Biblical gender roles as well as strict views on divorce.

Now as a Christian I would say we should only marry a Christian so even the first two women would have to be Christians. But for secular folks on the manosphere, the first two would still help to highly mitigate the chances of the divorce.

So, this is why if a man is careful in how he chooses his wife I believe the 35 percent chance of divorce is a dependable number. It may be far less if you find the right woman.

I want to encourage every man who as bought into the MGTOW spirit of fear to meditate on this passage of Scripture day and night and ask God remove the fear of marriage from your heart:

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” – 2 Timothy 1:7

7 Reasons that Christian Men Should Embrace Marriage and Reject MGTOW

I want leave MGTOW Christians with these reasons for marriage to combat all the MGTOW reasons against marriage.

You should marry because…

God commanded marriage in his first command to “Be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28).

God says that “is better to marry than to burn” with sexual desire (1 Corinthians 7:9).

God only allows celibacy for those who have this special gift for undivided service to God (I Corinthians 7:7). The Bible does not allow celibacy for selfish reasons for fearful reasons regarding marriage.

You cannot fully live out your purpose to image God without being a husband and father (I Corinthians 11:7).

Married men are more successful and make more money than all other groups (single men, single women and married women (Proverbs 18:22).

While a bad wife can cause great misery to a man, a good wife can bring great pleasure and happiness to his life. If you have a 65 percent chance of finding true joy and happiness in marriage as God designed it to be why would you not seize on this? (Proverbs 29:25)

Even if you fall into that 35 of men whose wives divorce them your children from that marriage can remain a source of joy and happiness for the remainder of your life (Psalm 127:3-5)

I want to zoom on point number five above about married men being more successful than single men, single women or married women.

“The wages of married men far surpass those of all of those groups. They exceed $80,000 per year by their peak earning years, while all the other groups barely graze $50,000 per year, according to data from the University of Minnesota and IPUMS-USA, a database of individual responses from the U.S. Census Bureau.”

While the world laments that married men still excel all other groups in their earnings this does not surprise me at all. It is a fulfillment of God’s Word:

“Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.” – Proverbs 18:22

There was a commenter on another blog that said something like this – “Women are like hand grenades for men. You just have to hope when you marry one, they won’t explode and destroy your life”.

But this is what God has to say about marriage and against the whoremongering that is encouraged by MGTOW ideology as well as Red Pill ideology:

“Marriage is honourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.” – Hebrews 13:4

A Final Word to Christian Fathers

As a father to my sons I could have fully embraced the MGTOW ideology. My first wife had two affairs on me with her ex-boyfriend. When we got divorced, she took me for half of everything I had and I was saddled with a huge child support payment (we had five children together in that marriage). It was one of the hardest times of my life.

I did go through a brief period of depression and then bitterness and anger. But my relationship with God was too important to me to allow that bitterness to fester and destroy any joy I had left in my life. So, I gave my hurts to God and decided to move forward and risk marriage again. A little over a year after my divorce I married my second wife. And I made sure she was very different than my first wife.

As any of my readers know, it is very true that my second wife was very different than my first wife. But that just meant I would have a whole new set of challenges with my second wife that I did not have with my first wife. But in the end God has preserved us despite the trials and I came to thank God for my trials because some wonderful things came of them. I have five beautiful children, two of whom are now working adults, from my first marriage. I treasure the relationship I have with them and I am so excited about the prospect of my first grandchildren hopefully in the next few years.

God also taught me through the breakup of my first marriage that even though I thought we were following Biblical gender roles I really was behaving much like a beta husband trying to please my wife and not confronting her sinful attitudes as I should have. As a result of my first divorce I became a much stronger man, became more grounded in my faith. I also realized that I could not live to please my wife and try to make her happy as that was a violation of of what I knew marriage was about. Marriage is about seeking holiness, not happiness. But happiness can come as a result of seeking holiness.

That meant I would no longer go out of my way to make sure my future wife was never upset or angry at me. I would do what I thought was right whether she agreed or not. She would not be the center of my world as I had often made my first wife. But instead caring for her physical and spiritual needs (as opposed to her wants) would be seen as only one part of the mission God had given me as a man.

I also thank God for the trials in my second marriage. My second wife’s feminist upbringing and her bucking of Biblical gender roles prompted me to start this ministry back in 2014. Over the last four years I have had over 6.5 million views and have been able to help many people each week via emails, comments and articles I have written.

If you are a Christian father reading this that has taught MGTOW ideology to you sons and discouraged them from marriage I pray you will repent of this. It is one thing to encourage your sons to wait for marriage until they are financially prepared to care for a wife and children and then to choose a wife very carefully. But it is a very different thing to completely discourage your son from God’s institution of marriage no matter how much feminism has poisoned our culture.

Rollo Tomassi runs “The Rational Male” blog and his “Red Pill” teachings have become very popular in the manosphere (He also has a couple of books). He attacks the falsehoods of feminism primarily from a sociological and psychological perspective as opposed to the way I attack feminism on this blog primarily from a theological perspective and only secondarily from a psychological and sociological perspective.

He recently sent in a comment on my post “How a husband can enjoy sex that is grudgingly given by his wife”. Rather than just post a comment to him there, I felt my response to Rollo warranted its own post because I think it would be beneficial for my readers to see where Rollo and I agree and disagree on how men can tackle feminism in their marriages.

Most Beta Christian men (which is to say 90%+) will proactively try to diffuse the sexual anxiety and tension necessary to inspire the ‘desired’ sex you describe here. They believe the pro-feminine lie that rapport, comfort and familiarity is what leads to sexual desire so they make every attempt to convince their wives that they have no need to worry or feel insecure that any other woman would want them sexually, much less appreciate them for being ‘good christian men’.

What they fail to grasp is that passionate sex inspired by genuine desire is the result of insecurity, anxiety and sexual tension. Most Christian men are conditioned to bypass this phase in seducing their wives, thinking that comfort and security are what will prompt her to being more sexual, but in doing so they kill the vibe before it can build. Comfort and rapport are post-orgasm, oxytocin effects, but Christian men believe they are prerequisites for sex. For the most part they are deathly afraid to embrace and exaggerate the uncertainty, spontaneity, anxiety and tension women need to feel sexual urgency.

You make sex another chore for a woman when you negotiate for her desire. Genuine desire cannot be negotiated. If you find yourself in a sexless (or passionless sex) relationship with your wife you need to embrace using soft dread situations to prompt her imagination. A woman’s imaginings are the best tool in you seduction toolbox, learn how to inspire them.

Make your wife unintentionally uncomfortable. Sexuality is spontaneous chemical reaction between two parties, not a process of negotiation. By its very nature passionate, desired sex is a result of being uncomfortable, uncertain and urgent. It might be an uncomfortable truth to most Christian men, but the best, most memorable, married sex you have won’t be the result of a pre-planned “Date Night” where you stage manage every event and nuance in advance; it will be the rough, hard-core, make-up sex you never thought you’d have after a near breakup inspired by the anxiety of the thought of never having you around anymore. “

My Response to Rollo

I have read many articles on your blog and I do find some truth about male/female interactions in what you say there. You and I would agree there are many lies propagated by feminism, some of them psychological and others sociological. Your blog is proof that that you need not be a Christian or even crack open a Bible to see feminism is a poisonous ideology.

The Biblical purposes of Marriage

But for me as a Christian, I have to look at marriage from a Biblical point of view. If I truly believe the Bible is the Word of God, then I embrace him as my creator and designer. He designed man, he designed woman and he designed marriage.

The spiritual purpose of marriage in God’s design (from a Biblical point of view) was for it to be a symbol of the relationship of God to his people. The temporal (earthly) reasons for marriage would include companionship, procreation, provision, protection and pleasure.

In this design he made man to be a symbol of himself and man plays out this symbol by leading her, protecting her, providing for her, teaching her and disciplining her. In this same design woman plays the part of humanity in how we are to depend on God for his leadership, his protection, his provision, his teaching and his discipline. This is why a woman’s submission to her husband is so emphasized throughout Scripture, because it is symbolic of the submission that humanity is to have toward God.

Should Christian wives fear their husbands?

You talk about “dread” and I read your posts on that subject. In the Christian faith we have a similar concept when it comes to God that we are to “fear” him. This is not some sort of scary fear (like God is a monster), but it is a reverent fear.

This is why the Bible tells women to submit to their husbands “as unto the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22) – literally a wife is to submit to her husband as she would unto God himself. She is commanded by God to “see that she reverence her husband” (Ephesians 5:33). The English word “reverence” in that passage is a translation of the Greek word “Phobeo” which literally means “to fear or be afraid” or “to reverence, venerate, to treat with deference or reverential obedience”. In fact most of the time that Greek word “Phobeo” is translated as “fear” throughout the New Testament.

So should a wife Biblically speaking have a little healthy fear or dread of her husband?

Absolutely!

Today most Christian wives have ZERO fear or dread of their husbands even though the Bible commands them to. In fact I would argue that in most Christian marriages men are the ones who fear their wives.

Men show their wives they are either afraid to lose them (be alone) or afraid of the prospect of divorce and the financial or child custody repercussions that it may bring.

Should men flirt with other women to invoke dread in their wives?

From a Christian perspective, I don’t agree with a man flirting with other women in order to invoke fear (or dread) in his wife. I actually believe that is dangerous because when men flirt or talk inappropriately to other women it leaves open a doorway to possible affairs.

However I think there is a grave difference between a man casually talking to a woman and flirting with her. Some wives are so jealously possessive of their husbands that if they say two words to another women they get “the look”. This ought not to be the case .

Also as I have stated many times on this blog a man should never be made to feel ashamed of his God given wiring to desire to look at beautiful women around him(whether in person, on TV or online).

The rules I teach to my teenage sons and the advice I give to other men is “glance, don’t gawk”. To gawk is to be rude not only to the women you are with, but also to the woman you are gawking at. To glance is to do what God wired every man’s brain to do and there is no shame in taking pleasure from tasteful glances of beautiful women.

The “there’s the door” method of invoking fear in one’s wife

I do think there are other ways to invoke a healthy or “soft dread” in a woman from a Biblical perspective. One of these methods is the “there’s the door” method. If a wife feels her husband is afraid to lose her or that he is afraid of what she would do to him in a divorce (financial and child custody repercussions) then she will never have that reverence (fear) for her husband that God commands women to have in Ephesians 5:33.

So when a woman acts out in rebellion toward her husband and tries to act as if she does not need her husband or that other men would treat her better the Christian husband should tell his wife “there’s the door”. Will some women be foolish enough to walk out that door? Yes. But the moment a man allows his wife to put him in a position of fearing her, rather than her fearing him the relationship has just changed from the design God intended it to be.

Meeting your wife’s needs versus her wants

From the perspective of sexuality and getting your wife to desire sex with you I advise Christian men to demonstrate to their wives by their actions that there is a direct correlation between a wife reverencing and ravishing her husband and her getting some of her wants met. And I emphasize “some”.

As Christian husbands we are required by God to provide our women with food, clothing, shelter and sex. These provisions along with our leadership, protection, teaching and discipline of our wives is what the love of a Christian husband looks like. We are also required to know our wives (talk with them) and give them proper honor as our helpmeet.

The only Biblical ways a husband is released from these requirements and may put his wife away (divorce her) is if she abandons him, physically abuses him, physically denies him the act of sex or if she has sex with another man.

But while we are required to know our wives and talk to them, that does not mean we need to spend every bit of our free time in conversation with them. We do not need to hang on every word our wife says. While we are required to give them food, clothing and shelter – that food does not have be the fancy food she wants, that clothing does not have to be the fancy clothing she wants and that house does not have to be the fancy house she wants.

Connect reverencing and ravishing with her wants being met

Reverencing was a concept we already talked about from Ephesians 5:33. A wife ravishing her husband has to do with her being sexually intoxicating to her husband based on Proverbs 5:19 “let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her love” and Christian wives have the wife in the Song of Songs as an excellent example of how a woman can show physical love to her husband.

So rather than a man pursing his wife by buying her flowers, taking her on dates and weekend getaways, buying her jewelry or just giving her more of his time he shows his wife that after and only after she does the right things – then these things come.

And I don’t just mean she just rocks his world one night, and then he lavishes her with all these things. No – she sees that in order to get “some” of her wants met she must FIRST reverence her husband outside the bedroom and she must ravish him inside the bedroom and this becomes the pattern of her behavior toward her husband. If either the reverence or ravishing goes down, he pulls back on these other things so she understands the correlation.

But even if a woman does reverence and ravish her husband as she should the husband must make his wife realize that this is never a way to control him. Some women are devious and they actually reverence and ravish their husbands in a manipulative way to get what they want or control all his time. This is something a Christian husband cannot allow his wife to do.

Grace and Mercy in Christian marriage

I wanted to say something about the Christian concepts of grace and mercy and how they apply to us as Christian husbands. For us as Christian husbands in our representation of God in his relationship with his people we also need to show grace and mercy toward our wives. This means sometimes we show them grace by giving them things they have not earned by their behavior and other times we show them mercy by not bringing the discipline on them that their behavior merits.

Conclusion

So Rollo – I think you and I agree on many of the problems, we just differ a bit on the solutions to those problems. But I do think where you and I agree is that a man must not run around trying to earn his wife’s reference and ravishing but rather he should constantly be showing her through various actions that her having her wants met(as opposed to needs) is directly related to how well she serves him as her husband.

From a Christian perspective a wife ought to be reverencing and ravishing her husband simply because God commands it. But it also helps to show that there is a correlation in the here and now when she does.

Was polygamy a sin God overlooked in the Old Testament but he finally got rid of in the New Testament? A broader question might be “Does God regulate and authorize behavior he thinks is sinful?”

If you have read many posts on this blog – you will know that I believe based on the Word of God(the whole Bible, not just the New Testament) that God never regulates or authorizes something he believes to be sinful, and therefore polygamy was not(and I would still argue today it is still not sinful when practiced Biblically).

Ever since I was a young man I have always been fascinated by three subjects – theology, history and human nature. Specifically I wanted to understand what parts of our human nature(and even more specifically our male and female natures) are by the design of God, and which ones come from our sin nature corrupting of the God’s original design.

So question that needs answering is – “Is man’s natural instinct to be drawn to multiple women a corruption of his nature or part of his original design by God? ”

Most Pastors and theologians since the time Augustine(who brought Christian asceticism into the Church) have promoted a belief that this is part of man’s sinful nature, and not the nature he was originally designed with in the garden of Eden. They argue that man was originally made by God with a monogamous nature, and only because of sin did polygamy enter the picture.

I have held this position on Biblical polygamy for 20 years(and no I am not a practicing polygamist) . It always bothered me when I was a young man growing up in Baptist Churches(which I still love and attend ) when the Pastor would come to a passage about polygamy and say something like “This was a sin God overlooked in ancient times, but he finally got rid of it in the New Testament”. This just bugged me! Since when does the God of the Bible regulate and authorize a behavior he believes to be sinful? I have always believed that the God of the Bible can never authorize or regulate sinful behavior and I always will.

Recently I had a little debate about this issue in another forum with a Christian woman when we were discussing the subject of men looking at women. Her name was Lucy. This is part of the conversation where switch to the topic of polygamy:

Lucy started by quoting a statement I am made:

“men are naturally polygynous as God designed them.” Can you please provide verse and chapter for us? It seems to me that if that were true, anything but polygamy would be cruel for men and that decans, pastors, etc, should not have to be the husband of only one wife.”

This was my response:

Lucy – I would be happy to respond with Bible passages that support the concept that men are naturally polygynous as designed by God.

God allows and regulates polygamy in Moses law

If a man takes a second wife, he cannot deny the first wife food, clothing or sex. He must continue being a husband to her as well, even if he has more romantic attachment to his second wife.

“If he take him another wife; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish. And if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money.” – Exodus 21:10-11

A man could not take his wife’s sister as a rival wife while his wife lived:
“Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.” – Leviticus 18:18

If a man had two wives, and he did was not romantically attracted to or did not get along with one as good as the other, he still had to acknowledge the rights of her son if he was firstborn:

“15 If a man have two wives, one beloved, and another hated, and they have born him children, both the beloved and the hated; and if the firstborn son be hers that was hated:

16 Then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved firstborn before the son of the hated, which is indeed the firstborn:

17 But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.” – Deuteronomy 21:15-17

Leah was blessed by God for giving her husband one of her hand maids as a wife:

“9 When Leah saw that she had left bearing, she took Zilpah her maid, and gave her Jacob to wife…17 And God hearkened unto Leah, and she conceived, and bare Jacob the fifth son.

18 And Leah said, God hath given me my hire, because I have given my maiden to my husband: and she called his name Issachar.
Genesis 30:9 & 17-18

Lucy – many Christians because this does not meet with their preconceived notion that God always intended for men to be in monogamous marriages will say that that God only “allowed polygamy, but it was still sinful”.

The God of the Bible does NOT all sin – EVER. What he allows, he approves of – to say anything less is to question the holiness of God.

Now does God sometimes change his laws?

Yes. For instance God allowed the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve to marry(what we would call incest) and this practice was not condemned until later in the Mosaic law.

There was no sin Jacob marrying two sisters(Leah and Rachel) even though he was tricked. God had not yet forbid a man from marrying sisters.

God never condemned polygamy, but rather he regulated it which means he approved of it.

Some will try to point to Deuteronomy 17:15-17 where God says that a King shall not “multiply wives to himself” to say God was condemning polygamy. The problem with that interpretation is that the same man – Moses that wrote that wrote regulations on polygamy! So he certainly was not contradicting himself. Instead what he was saying is that king is not to “horde wives” – much in the way King Solomon did with having 1000 wives! King Solomon abused the concept of polygamy and his heart was indeed lead astray.

As to your point that it would be cruel then to make men have only one wife – you are right that it does make things difficult for polygynous men living a world that has now confined men to monogamous marriage.

However even in Biblical times not all men were able to marry more than one wife, and many did not have any wife at all. This is because male slaves and servants could only have a wife if their master allowed them to. Also poor men often did not marry because fathers would not give their daughters to a man that could not pay a bride price and could not care for their daughters. This left many women that needed husbands and this is why wealthier men had many wives.

So while most men are polygynous in their nature, that does not mean all men should were able to act on that polygynous nature by taking multiple wives.

Lucy replied:

“I’m so disappointed to hear you’re back in the Old T. You have mistaken an allowance in ancient times for “men are designed that way,” but the Bible presents monogamy as God’s ideal for marriage.

“For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife [not wives], and they will become one flesh [not fleshes]” (Genesis 2:24). While Genesis 2:24 is describing what marriage is, rather than how many people are involved, the consistent use of the singularis used.

In the New Testament, 1 Timothy 3:2, 12 and Titus 1:6 give “the husband of one wife” in a list of qualifications for spiritual leadership.

While these qualifications are specifically for positions of spiritual leadership, they should apply equally to all Christians. Should not all Christians be “above reproach…temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money” (1 Timothy 3:2-4)? If we are called to be holy (1 Peter 1:16), and if these standards are holy for elders and deacons, then they are holy for all.

Also, note how Ephesians 5:22-33 speaks of the relationship between husbands and wives. “Husband” is always singular. “Wife” is always singular.

In the above verse, If polygamy were allowable,the entire illustration of Christ’s relationship with His body (the church) and the husband-wife relationship falls apart.

Even going back to Adam and Eve, polygamy was not God’s original intent. God seems to have allowed polygamy to solve a problem in brutal times, but it is not the ideal. I can certainly find no proof God designed men that way.

This was my response to Lucy:

Lucy, as Christians we can sometimes be disappointed or surprised by what our fellow brethren believe. I am always disappointed when I find my Christian brethren believing God tossed the Old Testament in the garbage can when he gave us the New Testament and that is not the case at all.

You are absolutely right that Biblically speaking we are no longer under the Law, but under grace- Praise God!

“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” – Romans 6:14 (KJV)

But what “law” is Paul speaking of? He is speaking of the cleanliness law, civil law, the sacrificial law, the priestly law that Moses gave to Israel as a theocracy. The Scriptures tell us in Hebrews 8:13 that the old covenant has been replaced with the New – praise God!

In Galatians 3:24-25 the Apostle Paul tells us that the law (the sacrificial part of the law, the civil and the priestly law) was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ – but now that Christ is come we are no longer under that school master – again praise God!

That means we don’t have to stone people who commit adultery, or stone rebellious kids. We don’t have to make sacrifices to cover our sins. We don’t have to follow the cleanliness laws anymore. We don’t have to stay away from certain meats, or practice the festivals.

But this does not mean that God’s moral law – contained with the Law of Moses is also obsolete. For instance while Moses law may prescribe death for someone committing murder – we are not required anymore to do that – as that is part of the civil laws of Israel that have been made obsolete. But is murder still sin? Is it still a violation of God’s moral law? Yes.

Paul said this about the moral law contained in Moses Law:

“Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.” Romans 3:31(KJV)

“What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet…Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good.” – Romans 7:7 & 12

Over 350 times Jesus or his Apostles quote from the Old Testament – we don’t have New Testament without the Old Testament. We can learn many things about the character of God, as well as us as his creations through the Old Testament. I hope and pray you and other believers will find a greater appreciation for the Old Testament as it is just as much the Word of God as the New Testament is.

Now on to the issue of polygamy – or to be more specific polygyny (a man having more than one wife). Lucy you are absolutely right that God says they will become “one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). He does not say “one fleshes” as you correctly point out. You know why? Because a man has an individual marriage with each one of his wives. If a man and all his wives were one together that would be something called “Polyamory” where multiple live together and sleep with one another. Wives could sleep with wives, or sleep with their husband. In fact you could have several men, and several women in a polymorous relationship. But that is NOT what polygyny is.

Polygyny is where a man has more than one marriage. He has several marriages. But he has a separate and distinct relationship with each of his wives, and God points out in Exodus 21:10-11 he has a separate and distinct duty to provide food, clothing and to become ONE FLESH (have sex) with each of his wives.

Apparently God who inspired Moses to write about marriage being one flesh, and speaking of a husband and wife in the singular – saw no contradiction between that and a man having more than one wife.

Is the “husband of one wife” requirement (I Timothy 3:2, 12 and Titus 1:6) for a Pastor speaking of monogamy or divorce? I would argue based the qualifications of widows who could be supported by (and became servants of) the church that Paul was speaking of a Pastor or Deacon not having been divorced from his first wife:

“Let not a widow be taken into the number under threescore years old, having been the wife of one man.” – I Timothy 5:9 (KJV)

But let’s say you were right (which I don’t think you are), that Paul was forbidding polygamy by Pastors and Deacons. If he was, then by forbidding it to Pastors and Deacons, he was acknowledging that Christians were actively practicing polygamy. Why when he wrote so much about marriage and divorce, and he even forbid believers from marrying non-believers, why did he not just go ahead and tell believers “you cannot marry more one wife anymore(as God had previously allowed you too)”?”

As to Ephesians 5, I love that God designed marriage to a model of his relationship with his people. In the Old Testament he pictures himself as a husband to his wife Israel, and in the New Testament he pictures marriage as the relationship between Christ and his Church. Beautiful!

However I respectfully disagree with you that polygyny destroys this beautiful model of Christ and his Church. In the New Testament the Church is often referred to in the singular, but other times it is referred to in the plural (churches). Just as God referred to Israel as his wife (singular), he also referred to Israel as his wives (plural) when speaking of Israel and Judah in the book of Ezekiel:

“Son of man, there were two women, the daughters of one mother…And the names of them were Aholah the elder, and Aholibah her sister: and THEY were mine, and THEY bare sons and daughters. Thus were their names; Samaria is Aholah, and Jerusalem Aholibah.” – Ezekial 23:2 & 4

In the same way while Christ often refers to his Church in the singular in the New Testament, he also refers to his Church in the plural much the same way God referred to Israel and Judah when he speaks of the 7 Churches in the book of Revelation. He speaks to all but one of their unfaithfulness in different areas. It appears that Christ has a separate and distinct relationship with each of his churches – does this somehow hurt the concept of Christ and his Church being a model for marriage – I think not.

When Christ speaks to his Church in the singular, it is in much the same way that a man with many wives would speak to his family (including all his wives) which is also what the Church is compared to in this passage:

“But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.” – I Timothy 3:15

I say all this to say, from the OT to NT the concept of a man being married to more than one wife, and having a distinct relationship with each of his wives does not break the model of what God intended marriage to be. A man can be one flesh with each of his wives, as God is one with each of his churches.

As far as your assertion that God creating only one man and one woman (Adam and Eve) in the garden means that was his model for marriage, are you then saying that brothers and sisters marrying was his model for marriage? Because Adam and Eve’s children had to marry one another. The fact is that God could have created two sets of couples so that incest would not have to occur just as he could have created more wives for Adam. He chose not to. But again I draw your attention to the fact that the same God who created Adam and Eve also gave Moses commands allowing men to take more than one wife – if that were a violation of his model he would not have allowed it.

Many married women(especially young married women) wonder how their husbands can be attracted to other women. The reason is that most women are naturally monogamous in their sexual nature as God designed them to be, while men are naturally polygynous as God designed them.

I am thankful that God has used this ministry not only to encourage Christian wives about meeting their husband’s sexual needs – but it is also encouraging to see women learning to respect how God designed man’s sexual nature very differently from their own.

I respond privately to emails like this all the time, but this woman unfortunately sent me a comment with no email address asking for help – so I hope she sees this post (and if she has any private questions – makes sure she includes her email that I can respond to).

She named herself “AdviceMePlease” and she wrote:

“I am glad I stumbled on this website. I learned some good points from your article how to respect my husband. My husband like it mentioned, is a visual creature too. I was unaware of guys being visual and it bothered me for a long time when he looked at other girls, or kept repeatedly watching the YouTube videos of his favorite actresses. I always wondered why he married me if he is into other women. (Silly me!) my question/problem is he keeps talking about the women he is impressed all the time with me and it makes me feel less. An intern at his work- there were days I had to hear first thing in the morning about her after we wake up, or first thing after he comes from work. Our pediatrician is very friendly with us and mostly him, and lately I hear about her atleast once a day. I tried not to get jealous but I am beginning to see that my husband likes girls who are funny, independent. He likes Asians alot :-p.”

This is my response to this Christian wife and other wives who may face this issue:

I am glad that you came to accept the visual and polygynous nature of your husband and the fact that is a natural and normal thing for him to look at and be attracted to other women.

But let me be clear – there is a difference between a man being visually wired and attracted to multiple women, and a man being flirtatious or promiscuous. I am not saying your husband is either of the last things I said – but I want to draw a very clear line there just so you know. If you think he is being flirtatious, then you have every right as his wife to respectfully talk to him about that. If you believe he is putting himself in positions with a woman at work(like working late all the time) or spending way too much alone time with her – then as his wife you have a right to be concerned and address that with him.

But if your only issue is that your husband looks at other women and is attracted to other women this is how I would address the issue with him. Tell your hubby how much you love him and respect him. Admit to him that you used to be bothered by the fact that he was attracted to other women and wondered why he married you if he was attracted to other women.

Then you realized that God made him different as man then you as a woman. You now understand how he can be attracted to other women, but still be attracted to you and he gives you something he is not giving any other woman – his love! But while you understand his nature, and understand he might talk about different women with the guys(which is totally normal), you would appreciate it if he did not talk about other women he is attracted to around you. It’s not that you think he is wrong for thinking they are beautiful, it is just that you as a woman don’t need to hear about other women he thinks are pretty.

I have had to have this conversation with some my male relatives when they talked about women around their young wives and the light bulb came on and they realized why they probably should not do that. Now some women are fine with this to a point – my wife is fine with me saying that I like certain actresses, but I would not tell her if I thought a woman at work was beautiful as that might make her worry(when she really has nothing to worry about).

I will close with this admonition to men that I have stated elsewhere on this site. It is ok for you to look at and be attracted to women other than your wife. While some women are ok with you talking about other women, many women are not.

It is not ok to gawk at women or do things that make your wife/mom/sister or other women around you uncomfortable. It’s not ok to talk about women you think are hot or beautiful around your wife/mom/sister or other women who might be bothered by this. Be a gentlemen, be discreet – keep the guy talk with the guys, and keep the looking to discreet glances.

Bodycrimes made this comment in reply on a post she wrote about Older men and Younger women:

“Except that women aren’t making that sacrifice at all. Women who are university educated are now the most likely to get married and have families. Professional and educated men do not marry uneducated women. The worst thing a woman who aspires to a middle class or above life could do is to fail to get an education and career.”

Are there studies that on the surface would seem to support what she said? Yes.

This study sited at the HuffingtonPost would be one that seems to confirm her opinion:

“According to a new study by NYU sociologists Paula England and Jonathan Bearak, prepared for the Council on Contemporary Families, college-educated women are now as likely to get married as their less-educated peers — even if the weddings happen in a somewhat older age range. These findings contradict the previously prevailing idea that women who pursued higher education were more likely to delay finding a mate past some stereotypical “marriageable age” while studying and building demanding careers.”

However as you dig deeper into the study, you note the disparity between races on this issue.

“In terms of race, the delayed marriage boost that college education produces is far more pronounced for black women than for white women. While “black women have lower odds of ever marrying than white women … getting a college education raises ultimate marriage rates by the 30s and 40s much more substantially for blacks than whites.” Black women who don’t complete high school are far less likely to get married than any other group.”

Because there is a complete breakdown of the nuclear family in the black community of the United States, where almost 70% of black children are born out of wedlock Black women need that extra education to give them that leg up. But in other racial groups, especially with whites, where the out of wedlock birth rate is more around 30%, a woman having a college education does not have as high an impact on her marriageability or getting into the middle class.

This study cited by the Huffington Post also shows that these same college educated women, while having a better chance of getting married (and as I pointed out this is more in the black community than in other racial communities) also marry much later.

What they don’t report is that these women who marry later in life often have a lot more fertility issues and this is one of the contributing factors to declining birth rates in most western nations (including the US).

But is a higher education all positive for women? Not really according to this study cited at Bloomberg.com:

“Women who have come out on top in the job market may not find similar success in the marriage market… Aversion to wives earning more than husbands could be leading to fewer weddings and more divorces, according to a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper… couples where a wife earns more are less satisfied with their marriage and are more likely to divorce”

The higher educated a woman is, and the more she makes directly lessens her chances of getting married and even if she does get married her chances of divorce are much higher.

The study cited in the HuffingtonPost and the one at Bloomberg.com are not contradictory when you look at the racial factor. There is truly a marriage crisis in the Black community, to deny so would be to deny what every government and private study shows us. Does poverty have some affect? Yes. But even in other racial communities where poverty exists marriage rates are much higher than in lower income black areas.

If you remove the racial factor, for whites especially, a woman having a higher education makes her LESS likely to get married, and when she does get married she will have a much higher chance of divorce.

That may not sit well with my feminist and egalitarian friends, but it is the truth.